Weekend Project – New Drapery

Not content with merely running a 10K in personal-record time this weekend, Benjamin and I took on the task of making drapery for the living room windows. You read that correctly – not purchasing drapery, but making it ourselves. Little did I know on Saturday morning that I would be wielding a hacksaw, screwdriver, and sewing machine all in one weekend.

When Benjamin picked out the fabric for the “wall” that was used in our wedding (photo of the ‘wall’ during original concept construction), he did it with the intention of using the same fabric later to make curtains or drapery for the windows in our living room. Two birds, one stone you might say. Ever since the wedding he has been anxious to get the project started and I was informed on Saturday morning that Project Drapery would be this weekend.

The journey began with a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase the curtain rods. Alas, none of them were short enough for what he wanted so we purchased 4 of the shortest rods with the intent of me ‘fixing’ three of them to the desired length. In addition to the rods, ends to attach to them were purchased to finish off the look he was wanting.

Armed with the hardware, we went back to the house (after a short detour to pick up our race packets) to begin construction.

Measurements were taken, discussions were had, more measurements were taken, marks were made, and construction began. I had Benjamin start taking stitches out of the existing fabric wall as I took 3 of the curtain rods to the back patio with a hacksaw in hand. 30 minutes later our 36″ curtain rods were now a short 10.5 inches and our wall-‘o-fabric was now in its parts. While Benjamin began measuring and trimming the fabric to their final size, I began installing the brackets for the hardware to the wall.

About this time we had to set the project on hold to attend Ryan’s going away get-together. We picked back up Sunday early afternoon post race (and post lunch).

As I finalized the few remaining hardware brackets as Benjamin pinned the strips of fabric for hemming. This is when the aforementioned sewing machine comes into play. Yes, yours truly can sew with the best of them — at long as they are straight lines (and yes, I see the irony). For the next several hours I hemmed fabric as Benjamin worked his magic.

The results are well worth the bandwidth – photos below

ADC: IBM Uptown Classic 10K

Benjamin and I are running the Austin Distance Challenge (ADC) again this year. The first race of the season was the IBM Uptown Classic 10K that was held earlier this morning.

When we ran the ADC races last year we didn’t train consistently for them like Jeff (jeffford) and Jonobie (jonobie) did and we really felt it in the Freescale Marathon at the end. This year we’ve been very good about following a training schedule for the past three weeks and it paid off in the race today.

Without further ado, our results:

Race: IBM Uptown Classic 10K
Casey


Overall position 912 out of 1945
Class position (M 25-29) 81 out of 139
Chip time 55:05 (personal best)
Pace 8:52/M

 
Benjamin


Overall position 914 out of 1945
Class position (M 20-24) 27 out of 36
Chip time 55:07
Pace 8:52/M

Our Garmin Forerunner 201 reported the following paces for each mile:

Mile Pace
1 8:34/M
2 8:38/M
3 9:12/M
4 8:36/M
5 9:10/M
6 8:39/M

Next time we’re going to try to start out slower as I think we started out a bit too fast. Overall, we were pretty happy with our results.

Next race: Girl Scouts-Lone Star Council’s Scenic 10 Miler – October 22nd